


see the bird with the leaf in her mouth

by sister_coyote



Series: The Great Cycle [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Alchemy, Character Study, First Time, Intellectual Kink, Libraries, M/M, Plotty, Post-Canon, Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-28
Updated: 2008-03-28
Packaged: 2017-10-06 21:05:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_coyote/pseuds/sister_coyote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It all makes sense," Ed went on, "the imperfect matter purified, but purity is without vitality -- the greening into life, and then the chaos of life, which has to flourish if you want to get anything potent out of it -- and then the re-focusing of chaos, making it true without sterilizing it into lifeless purity, and then the willing sacrifice, the offering of the self -- but I still don't understand where the energy for the final stage, the rebirth from the flames, I don't see how you can get that -- it's not physically possible, there's nothing entering the reaction there . . ."</p>
            </blockquote>





	see the bird with the leaf in her mouth

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the whole series, and set in a post-series-end semi-AU Happy Ending type thing.

Finding someone at his door of an evening wasn't _such_ an unusual experience for Roy Mustang.

Finding both Elric brothers, one looking aggressive and the other looking sheepish, however, was. They looked up at him in the circle of his porchlight—though not up by much in Alphonse's case; he had apparently got all the height in the family. Ed had maybe grown a little but he was always going to be short.

"Can I help you?" he asked, when Edward failed to say anything but gave him a hard, impenetrable look, as though he was expecting a fight.

Alphonse looked from his brother to Roy and then back again. He said, finally, "Brother and I want to ask you a favor." Roy clearly hadn't spent enough time with Alphonse-in-the-flesh; looking at him was like looking at a slightly muted reflection of Ed (no, that was unfair—not muted so much as less hardened, without the glitter off edges sharp enough to cut), but the sound of his voice still conjured up a seven-foot suit of spiky armor. Alphonse kicked his older brother not-so-discreetly in the ankle.

"We want to use your library," Edward said, without preamble.

". . . Why _my_ library?"

"We need space for our research." Edward said this as though that ought to have been obvious even to an idiot. "And it's not the kind of thing I'm comfortable doing under the eye of the military, or even the university."

"Also," Alphonse said helpfully, "we got thrown out of the library."

"Did you."

"For shouting," Alphonse said, giving his brother what Roy recognized as a fraternal skunk-eye. "And writing on the walls."

Edward bristled all over, like a cat—how _did_ he get his bangs to do that? It was almost in defiance of physics, even though Edward worshiped at the altar of Science—and said, "Look, I found the bit about the Green Lion that _finally_ explained some of that damned centuries-old metaphor, why we have to couch what's basically a scientific discipline in archaic allegory I do not understand, and I realized that the 'greening stage' of the Great Cycle means life, which means carbon, which means the crucible in the image is the transfer into the next step, the peacock's tail, which is iridescence, which means fire, and—it was exciting, all right?"

It was impressive that he could get it all out in one breath.

Alphonse listened patiently until his brother was done, and then looked back at Roy with a hint of hopeless hope. "—So we got thrown out, but we do need to keep researching this, and you've always been so helpful."

Roy stared at them both. "I didn't even realize you were back in town, Fullmetal. Alphonse."

Ed drew a breath and didn't launch into another tirade, which was maybe a sign that, at nineteen, he'd gone _some_ way toward mastering his temper, or maybe that was just wishful thinking. "Edward," he said. "Not Fullmetal, not for a good couple of years. And if you don't want to let me use your library, look, I'll find somewhere else. Maybe Mrs. Hughes, or Lieutenant Hawkeye, _she_ was never such a bastard . . . ."

"Lieutenant Hawkeye," Roy said, "doesn't have a spare room."

Ed folded his arms. "Fine. I'll find someone else, then."

"I didn't say you couldn't use the library," Roy said. "Come in. If you're going to shout at me, you can at least do me the courtesy of not doing it on my front porch in full view of the neighbors."

In the end, it wasn't Alphonse's beautiful manners that doomed Roy to giving in, though. It was the look in Edward's eye when he was talking about the Green Lion, that hoary old alchemical symbol—and Roy found that he was curious, entirely despite himself, in an oh-god-they'd-better-not-blow-up-my-house way, what Edward could do with it.

* * *

They took over the library completely. That was all right; Roy hadn't been using it much. His goals of late had not been things that could be achieved through any amount of alchemical research, and though he found himself missing it from time to time, he didn't have the luxury of lots of research time, unlike the Elrics. It was good to see the library in use again.

They came and went at odd hours, bearing sandwiches in bags and leaving crumpled napkins which Alphonse eventually remembered to clean up but Edward never did, though it was Edward who thought, at the end of the first week, to bring a bag of coffee to replace that which they'd taken of Roy's own stash. (He didn't announce the donation, and Roy knew better than to comment on it, lest Edward never do it again.) True to Alphonse's word, they didn't shout or write on the walls, though it was a close thing in both cases. Alphonse, always the more socially-comfortable brother even when he had been an empty suit of armor, made brief small talk when they ran into Roy; Edward rarely bothered, his nose in one book or other even as he came in, feeling around for the doorknob and vanishing into the dust-scented library.

It was good to see the library in use again, better than he would have expected—good to see Finesian's _On Boundary Notation_ and Golario's four-volume _Symbology of Animals in Alchemical Designs_ spread out over the desk alongside broadsheets (more appropriate for alchemical circle-drawing than letter-size or foolscap paper), the smells of ink and chalk and coffee and, sometimes, mustard joining the smell of dust and paper, and sometimes the window even open so that the fresh breath of spring air washed away all other smells. And it was good to see arrays, crossing and re-crossing each other, some in pencil and scratched and rescratched, useless for actual transmuting; others, clearly more refined versions of the practice-arrays, done in stark blue ink on yellowing onionskin-paper.

And sometimes, it was good to hear them discussing and debating and arguing.

Edward, bent over a penciled array, braid falling over his shoulder and eyes narrowed, intent: "I still think we need the bird here, in the top right section—here, the messenger between the worlds, the bird as link between the vital world and the ephemeral spirit—"

Alphonse, sitting back with his fingers laced together, eyes hazy and thoughtful: "'Bird,' Brother, too vague, you know that."

"I know. I know. Damn it, I need Crispinus' _On Flight_, but do you know who has that? No one." Ed flung his arm out in frustration and nearly upset his coffee cup.

"Brother . . ."

"Well, the library at Rennsmouth does, but they don't let anyone see it, they don't trust me, you'd think I was going to eat it or something . . ."

"Well, you never know."

"Al!"

A chuckle from Alphonse, and then, ". . . Brother, listen. The pelican. I think pelican will work there."

Edward frowned, fierce concentration. Roy realized suddenly what he was reminded of. It was like university, like sitting up with classmates and debating, vigorously, the use of the noble gases, whether they played a part in alchemy given how unreactive they were, or the proper percentage of oxygen to use when transmuting water.

Alphonse leaned far over the table, plucking the pencil from Edward's fingers. "Specifically, here—this pelican symbol." The pencil scratched over the paper, delineating a symbol Roy couldn't see from the doorway.

Ed leaned forward to look at it and gnawed his lip. "Maybe. Yes. Almost, but, no, like this—" He snatched the pencil back.

(It made Roy feel suddenly very, very old to realize that he'd been two years older than Edward when he'd had those conversations.)

Al hissed an indrawn breath. "The pelican with the bloody breast—"

"And the blood feeding its young," Edward said. "Yes. The conscious and willing sacrifice of vitality in the aid of others. It's the right symbol, but I don't know how to translate that into—"

"It's the second-to-last step in the process. Once we get this . . . ."

_Once you get this, what?_ It occurred to Roy, then, that he had no idea what they were trying to transmute. And at that moment, Edward looked up, hard yellow gaze, and Roy smiled a little and turned away, taking the hint.

* * *

It was Alphonse he finally asked, because from Alphonse he would get either an honest answer or at least a direct lack of answer. From Edward he would probably get abuse mixed with not a lot of information.

"May I ask what you're researching?" he asked, as Alphonse was filling the coffeepot with water.

Alphonse paused for so long that the coffeepot began to overflow; he looked down with consternation at the water dripping over his hand and then set the pot on the counter and shut off the water. "Well," he said, and took a deep breath. "Biological alchemy."

Roy stilled.

"Not like that," Alphonse said quickly. "Not like—no, nothing like that. We wouldn't, we've seen so much go wrong from _that_. Not chimeras, not human transmutation. Nothing like that." He drew a very deep, shaky breath. "But we've seen . . . such a lot of pain, and, and suffering, and injury and illness, so much we weren't able to prevent, if there's even a little bit we can—and Ed says that considering where the energy for alchemy comes from, it's only equivalent to put it toward healing and relieving pain. That kind of thing. I don't know exactly what he does mean by that, but I trust him. So. But it's . . . delicate and complicated, and there's a component we're missing."

Roy's mouth twisted. "If it's just one component you're missing, you've come closer than anyone else in the history of alchemy."

Alphonse's smile went thin. "Well," he said, "things being impossible never stopped us before. I'm just glad we can do this searching indoors, without anyone trying to kill us."

* * *

Roy didn't mean to eavesdrop. He had plenty of work of his own to do, and they were discreet enough that he could have ignored them completely. But there was something compelling about the pair of them, bent with absolute intensity over their work.

No, he thought: don't lie to yourself, nothing good comes of that. What was compelling was Edward. He'd seen him before in a flare of fury, or cocky with his own power, or so tired he actually looked his age, but he'd never seen him like _this_, even though it was obvious that study was a huge part of his life. There was something about the way he sat on the edge of the window, in a shaft of light, utterly riveted on the text in his lap.

Riveted until he came to something he didn't like, and then suddenly he was Fullmetal again, tossing the book on the desk and snarling, "We're back to the Sun and the Moon _again_. There must be something in that, because if you discount it the formulas don't come out, but it's all—it's all _religion_."

Alphonse calmly picked up the discarded book and opened it, flicked through a few pages. "Well, here," he said, "the Sun is riding a lion with a dragon beneath his feet, earth and fire, and the Moon is riding a dolphin with a bird in her hand, water and air."

Ed rolled his head back, sunlight catching off his profile. Roy had been thinking that he didn't look much older than he had at sixteen, but that wasn't true, not really. It was obvious if you looked: he was a little leaner, a little broader of shoulder, sharper of jaw. It was just easy not to notice, because the iconic elements of his appearance, the yellow hair and yellow eyes and short stature, hadn't changed. Ed rolled those yellow eyes and recited, "'And between them the tree of Life, which is also the join between the physical world between its roots and the stars in its branches.' Exactly what we want. But I can't figure out—the male-female dichotomy is too simplistic, and the four-elemental is way too simplistic, that's pre-Periodic, it's only tangentially related to anything in the real world."

"A lot of the most important symbols are old like that," Alphonse said.

Ed flexed his fingers and rotated his wrists, metal and flesh. "I _know_. It drives me _crazy_ trying to translate that into proper scientific information—!" He looked up, and caught Roy's gaze, and Roy felt caught, even though it was his own damn house and the door was open. "Something to contribute?" Edward asked, acidly.

Well, _that_ stung a little. Certainly, he wasn't a prodigy like the Elric brothers, but he wasn't stupid, and he _had_ spent a significant part of his life on alchemical study. "Yes, actually," he said. "The Sun and Moon traditionally exemplify energy, polarized energy. And I think if you look you'll find mercury—it may be called quicksilver—in the seals. That's change."

"Energy doesn't come from within the array," Edward said. "It comes from—outside it." And his face darkened a little. But then he sucked at his cheek thoughtfully and said, "Al, hand me that book."

It had been mostly bluffing, to be honest; it was true, what he'd said about Sun and Moon, but how to make that actually applicable he had no idea. But as he slipped away again to his own work, he saw Ed—Edward—looking not at the book but at him, with a peculiar expression on his face.

* * *

Three days later, he got off work to find Edward at his home alone, commandeering his phone. He gave him a questioning look.

"Alphonse took a day off," Edward said. "I'm ordering pasta." Then, magnanimously, "You want anything?"

A day off? Interesting. "No, thank you," he said, but lingered as Edward finished his order and then dropped straight into the kitchen chair, book in hand. "Did you two have an argument?" he ventured, because Edward was acting oddly.

"Nah," Edward said without looking up. "Not really. He just thinks I'm working too hard. And I said I liked working too hard, and he said I was going to be old when I was twenty-five and I said he didn't know what he was talking about and he said that if I was going to insist on driving myself into the ground he wasn't going to encourage me. So he's at home." Edward didn't look too concerned, and probably he was right not to; the brothers never fought badly, or for long. They'd been through too much together, most likely.

"Ah," Roy said, diplomatically.

Ed did look up then, sudden and sharp, with his fanged dangerous grin and his eyes narrowed. In the well-lit kitchen with dusk out the window beside his head, he looked bright and animal. "You agree with him."

"You do work surprisingly hard for someone who's already achieved one impossible goal. On the other hand, it keeps you occupied and I live in terror of the day you are at loose ends."

"Nn," Edward said, flipping a page desultorily. "It's important." Then he looked up suddenly, catching Roy's gaze with his own, searching in a way that made some part of Roy want to hide. He was _too_ incisive, sometimes, and it was only his comparatively poor grasp on human behavior that kept him from being a complete menace. "You're a lazy ass, but I know you know what it's like to go after something important."

Which made Roy think of a car trip, of Hawkeye in civilian clothes in the front seat, of a handshake, a million years ago . . . . He said nothing, and eventually Ed looked back down at his book and said, "Red snake, white snake, this is _nonsense_. I can't believe I have to waste my time on this."

"I admit I don't understand your emphasis on the symbology. I thought you just clapped your hands and things happened."

Ed's smirk was wry and disdainful, and he said airily, "What, you thought what I did was _easy_?"

"You do make it look easy."

Ed looked up again, his eyes half-narrowed, clearly trying to work out whether that was a compliment or an insult.

Roy shrugged with elaborate nonchalance. "If you don't want to explain, don't explain."

Ed's smirk turned crooked, turned inward. "It's hard to explain. With my hands clasped I . . . _become_ the array's circle. But the symbols and the runes—without them, it's just a circle, nothing to channel the energy to any end. And if I am the circle, then the runes have to be inside me. I can't describe—if I could, you could do it, but I _can't_, Al and I have _tried_—but the runes and symbols, they have to be," he flexed his fingers in obvious frustration and tipped his head back, his braid banging along his spine. Roy realized suddenly that he wasn't wearing his customary layers; in the warmth of the kitchen he wore just a shirt. "They have to be in me. A part of me. So I still have to study and build arrays if I want to keep learning . . . ."

And that might have been the best and strangest part: Ed could clap his hands and do almost anything, that was the funny part, and yet he still acted like he was starved for information, for learning.

"Good enough?" Ed asked.

"Quite."

"Good." The doorbell rang and Ed jumped to his feet, book temporarily forgotten in the presence of food. Then he glanced back before touching the doorknob. "And next time you want to hear what we're talking about? Just come in. It's fucking creepy when you lurk around the door."

Bemused, Roy said, "All right."

* * *

Alphonse was back two days later, looking exasperated but clearly also not willing to stay away any longer to make a point. Edward took his presence for granted—just as he took Roy's when Roy took him up on the tacit invitation, bringing his own papers into the library and working on them as the brothers bickered and debated.

"Damn it," Ed said, for the fifth time that day. "Damn it. It all makes sense, but there's a leap at the end. The symbolism—the black crow, the white eagle, the green lion, the tail of the peacock, the unicorn, the bloody pelican, the phoenix. That's the stages we need to go through for this. And it all makes _sense_."

Sense? Roy glanced up. He had studied the Great Cycle in his own research, of course, everyone who had formal alchemical training did; but the symbolism was so dense and obscure that few actually made anything of it. You didn't have to, to do even very good alchemy; all you had to learn was the necessary symbology for your chosen specialty, and enough chemistry to make it actually work.

"It all makes sense," Ed went on, "the imperfect matter purified, but purity is without vitality—the greening into life, and then the chaos of life, which has to flourish if you want to get anything potent out of it—and then the re-focusing of chaos, making it true without sterilizing it into lifeless purity, and then the willing sacrifice, the offering of the self—but I still don't understand where the energy for the final stage, the rebirth from the flames, I don't see how you can get that—it's not physically possible, there's nothing entering the reaction there . . ."

"You keep focusing on the Great Cycle, Brother," Alphonse said, "we've gone over this, all the oldest seals have that _and_ the other set of symbols. The three-in-two. Gold and Silver and Quicksilver. You keep ignoring that."

" . . . yes, because it's not scientific! The Great Cycle is just a fancy way of talking about decomposing and refining and recomposing matter; the, the, the Sacred Union is just . . . mythology." He said mythology as though it was the vilest of profanities; to him, maybe it was. Or blasphemy, more like, a false god in the sight of his chosen goddess.

"Or maybe you just don't understand what it means in terms of the science yet," Alphonse said, the only human being who could say something like that to Ed and live.

Ed growled and snatched another book from the pile.

* * *

For the next week, with and without Alphonse, Ed sulked. He spent a lot of time in the house—but less of it in the library than before, dragging books out and taking over Roy's couch, Roy's living room, as though he'd forgotten he didn't actually live there. He drank orange juice straight out of the carton, brooded, read, left his notes all over the house (including one, puzzlingly, in the drawer under the bathroom sink, which had said, "energy = radioactive material???" which was heavily crossed out, and below that was a very bad sketch indeed of the lower left quadrant of the Great Seal), fell asleep on the couch. Lurked in exactly the same way he had mocked Roy for doing, his eyes heavy and thoughtful and irritated, until Roy got tired of having a shadow and sent him out to replace the orange juice he'd ruined.

"Didn't ruin it," Ed snarled.

"Pardon me for not wanting your spit in my morning glass."

He'd figured out something he didn't like, that was the only answer. The search didn't ever seem to bother Ed—he was cocky confidence and sharp-edged determination when on the hunt, which could be problematic, but he didn't sulk.

Roy wondered what he'd found out. And wondered why he cared.

* * *

Two more days later. Alphonse had gone home, finally, but Edward was caught in the powerful grip of study and remained, sitting sideways on Roy's couch with—Roy cringed a little, inwardly—his boots propped up on the couch cushions. He handed Ed a mug of coffee and sat down with his own papers (how disgustingly domestic!) but Ed didn't give him that peace.

"I've figured out part of it," he said.

"Oh?" Roy shouldn't encourage him, he shouldn't, but the luminous intensity of Ed's face was hard to turn down.

"Matter is energy, and energy is matter. I learned that while I was . . . away, and I think it's the principle on which sacrificing humans can make a red stone. The energy of life. It has to be that; if it was just the composition of the body, you could make a Stone out of people who'd died of natural causes, or out of a pile of chemicals."

"Mm," Roy said.

Ed shifted uncomfortably, flipping to a marked page at the middle of the book. "I've had enough of sacrifice for a hundred lifetimes, but, well, when I was away I was in a place that paid a lot more attention to physics, and I think—I think we could harness living energy in ways that didn't hurt people, and use that for healing and other Great Works. The energy of physical work, maybe, or—or sleep and dreaming, or—"

And then he looked suddenly . . . embarrassed, as though his mouth had got away from him. After a moment, Roy leaned over to look discreetly over his shoulder to see what's got him so fascinated and consternated: the picture on the page was one of the common basic symbols of alchemy, the marriage of the Solar King and the Lunar Queen, the Gold Sun and the Silver Moon. Crude symbolism: naked bodies pressed together, but instead of human heads one stylized gold-leaf sun, the other a stylized silver moon. Oh. That explained . . . something, although how had Ed gotten to be nineteen and so shy and borderline-ignorant of sex?

Foolish question. He knew perfectly well how. Ed would tell him with a straight face: he'd never had time to think about it, he was too _busy_.

Well, he was thinking about it now, and Roy wondered with sudden, sick fervency that this wasn't the prelude to Ed wanting some kind of fatherly, oh god, _fatherly_ sex talk. And looking at him, frowning a little at the book, shining in the lamplight and not a boy at all and not one for a while, he realized very suddenly why the idea of a fatherly sex talk made him feel ill.

Instead, as calmly as he could muster, he said, "The Sacred Union has been tried before, Edward. Many, many times, because it is one of the . . . least unpleasant experiments to run, given the right circumstances. But it's been tried without noticeable success, I'm afraid."

Ed flushed suddenly, faster and redder than Roy would have expected, and assumed his standard defensive position, which was full-barreled attack. "Do you think I'm studying this just because I want to get laid?"

"No," Roy said, immediately and honestly. "Not you."

But that didn't make Ed happy either. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

Disproportionate reaction was par for the course from Ed, but Roy realized with a lurch that this was not a topic he wanted to have a shouting match over, because this was not a topic that he could allow to become heated. At all. "Merely that you have never been one to use your studies to serve your personal desire. Rather then opposite, in fact."

Ed still looked irritable and flustered, but he settled down, nose in his book, and grumbled, ". . . Anyway, I think there are _plenty_ of other kinds of energy, you pervert."

Needling him just a little was irresistible. "As you like, Edward."

* * *

It was awkward, it was _incredibly_ awkward, that Roy had realized his attraction to Ed at precisely the time that Ed was spending most of his time, effectively, reading about sex.

Not in a pornographic sense, but after their conversation Ed had acquired every book he could on the Sacred Union, sexual symbolism, and sex alchemy, and lay around the house reading them. Blowing his bangs out of his face, stretching out on the couch, _reading_ them, and he'd stopped bringing Alphonse with him as often presumably because it embarrassed him to be studying sex in front of his brother, but that didn't help either. At least he didn't wear leather pants and sleeveless shirts all the time these days. (Damn him for not wearing leather pants and sleeveless shirts all the time these days.)

Roy had no idea what Alphonse thought of all this and was kind of afraid to wonder.

Finally, it became too much of an elephant in the room _not_ to ask, and so as casually as he could manage he observed the color inset of the Great Seal over Ed's shoulder and said, "The Sacred Union again?"

Ed's shoulders jerked defensively, and he curled automail fingers around the top of the book "There's so _much_ about it, there must be something there—don't think it's just that I—it's not that I _want_ to try it."

It was too easy to tease him, and he flustered so readily. "No?"

"No! It's just, if it's the way to do this and I never do, then what's it all for? It's not that I—anyway, you know, everyone would say I ought to be the Lunar Queen because I'm" _short_ " . . . young."

Roy exhaled. This again. "For one thing, Edward, it's rare that anyone who approaches this with intelligence is so short-sighted as to map Silver to literal femininity; second, the alchemical notions of 'male' and 'female' are almost entirely divorced from biological gender, and third—" Third, he'd been about to say: third, Edward, anyone with eyes or a brain would associate you with the sun, and with gold—gold hair, gold eyes, skin miraculously bronzed-tan despite the fairness of your coloring, even if you are beautiful you are so clearly a beautiful man and so _clearly_ gold, for good and ill, with all the brashness and temper that that implies but also all the blazing luminosity and sheer brilliance—but that was a dangerous thought even to think, let alone to say—"—and third, there's no shame in playing either of the parts. I once took the role of the Moon in an array of that nature. It doesn't make me a woman." _Or short._

Ed gaped at him, jaw unhinged in a way that made Roy feel a little foolish for his mental paean of a few seconds prior. "You did? _You_?"

"Yes. I told you, it's been tried many times, for many reasons but usually because it's a very pleasurable experiment to undertake in the name of science."

Ed sat up suddenly eager in a way that made Roy's heart thump, but the words out of his mouth were all science: ". . . did you feel—was it—was it successful in raising the energy at all, or did it not even do that? Where did it fail, in power or in purpose?"

"I'm not sure I remember. It was a long time ago, and I was distracted at the time." Was he trying to talk Edward into it? Oh, dangerous dangerous dangerous—"As I said, it to my knowledge it's never had the desired results, it's never been anything but a diversion."

"Yes, but—but in theory it ought to, I think, maybe, the array just hasn't ever—"

And Ed never lacked confidence in his own abilities. But maybe he was being unfair; he'd known it didn't work when he'd tried it, but he'd tried it anyway. He knew he held Ed to an unreasonable standard and made Ed feel small by his own composure, when Roy would not have been so composed at fifteen or seventeen or nineteen himself. But he couldn't help it.

Then Ed he exhaled, tipping his head back over the arm of the couch and exposing his throat in a way that couldn't possibly be deliberate, his hair falling in his eyes and his braid down over the couch. "But it's all academic. There's just me, after all."

Roy couldn't speak. _Just him_ indeed.

* * *

For the next few days he watched Ed roll the thought around in his head—watched Ed in general, _damn_ it—and tried to think of a way to get Ed out of his house that wouldn't do more harm than good. Or get Alphonse to come with his brother more often again. Or hide all the books on the Sacred Union. Or anything.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much he could do in the face of Ed's baffling, brilliant, sideways thought-processes. And there wasn't much he could do in the face of Ed's much less baffling slow attempt to pick up a human social nicety that . . . . well, okay, most young men didn't quite have nailed down. Still. It was distracting and difficult to catch Ed looking at him, long and speculative, and then away, and then back again. Eyes like a wild animal, like a hunting hawk, sharp and seeing too much and not enough, not tempered enough with normal peoples' social customs.

And he knew what was coming when he saw the determined set to Ed's jaw, the look in his eyes, and he thought, oh, hell, here we go.

"I want to try it," Ed said, baldly, as though brashness could cover his obvious nerves. "The—the silver and gold array."

He was too skittish to use even the technical term, "Sacred Union," let alone any of the cruder terms for what actually happened, and that meant that he wasn't ready. He wasn't ready. As hard as that was to convince himself of, with Edward standing in front of him, diffident for maybe the first time in his life.

Roy swallowed. Tried to ignore the part of him that was pointing out that Ed was offering _to have sex with him_, and how appealing he looked like this, fierce and determined and yet nervous, eyes glinting with fight-or-flight. No. Not a good idea. "I want to understand quite clearly what you mean, Edward."

Ed flared with temper, as he always did when unsure. "I—I—with who else, you bastard? _Al?_"

Ah, yes. Necessity. "I'm not sure I want to be just a convenient body, whatever you may believe of me." He knew he wasn't being entirely kind, but damn it, Ed was putting him in a hell of a position here. Edward Elric on a silver platter, and the only problem was that Ed might not realize quite what he was doing but _Roy_ did.

Ed turned red, the same anger he'd had months prior on Roy's doorstep. "That's not what I—! Oh, fuck it, you want to believe the worst of me, go ahead. I can't stop you." It really was unfair, the way Roy needled Ed, the way he used his own maturity against Ed, but he needed every weapon in his arsenal.

Well. That was interesting. Did he mean he hadn't just suggested this because he needed another body and it couldn't be Al? But that still wasn't the point, he had to remember. "That's not entirely what I meant. You shouldn't be a convenient body, either." And Ed looked so puzzled it was almost heartbreaking, his brow furrowed, mouth quirked, too confused even to be angry. Yet. As gently as he could, Roy said, "Your first time shouldn't be as part of an experiment, I don't think."

There: the lock of confusion broke, and Ed was back to his default reaction in the face of uncertainty, insecurity, confusion. He sneered. "Getting sentimental on me, Mustang?"

"Maybe," he said. "Maybe I am. But you've done a great deal in service of your goals. This just . . . shouldn't be one of those things." Sudden flash of imagery: Ed, naked against him, smooth skin and smooth hair and the lines of an array beneath them both. No. _No_.

Ed was still sneering, an ugly expression that was hiding—what? "You could just say you weren't interested instead of pretending you're doing it all for my fucking _benefit_."

And he was tempted to lie; it would be gentler, in a strange way, to let him believe that: that Roy was simply not interested. That Edward was too young, that their past working relationship was too much in the way, that he simply wasn't attracted to Ed. The truth was so much more complex, and complexity made everything more difficult, and Ed was suspicious and resentful of things he didn't understand. Roy was so tempted. It would not have been the first time he'd lied, not by a long way. And yet he found he didn't want to, and that fact surprised him more than anything else.

So he said, softly, "I didn't say I wasn't interested. I am very, very much interested, you have no idea. I said that I didn't want this to be a sacrifice on the altar of your _research_."

And Ed was startled into silence, eyes wide and liquid gold. It was like a miracle. He'd almost never seen Ed go silent.

He took shameless advantage of it. "Good night, Edward."

* * *

Then Ed did go away, and he knew he should be relieved, because it solved a good number of problems in one go. But he wasn't. He found to his considerable dismay that he missed them—both of them, but especially Ed, of course especially Ed. He missed signs of life in his house, too big for one person, bought because it served the image he needed to project as Brigadier General. He missed coffee spilled on the counter and finding sandwich wrappers in odd places. He missed the constant stream of chatter from the library. He missed books in _really_ odd places. And, hell, he wasn't a saint, he missed the opportunity to just watch Ed when he was wrapped up in a book, bright in the light coming through the window or in lamplight, eyes so focused it was like nothing else existed.

He knew he was thinking like—like—like _Havoc_, and that was a terrible sign.

He tried very hard not to think of it at all.

* * *

And then Ed was there on his doorstep again. He'd _knocked_, which hadn't happened since that first day, when they'd both shown up, one smiling and one sullen, on his porch.

"Can I come in?" Ed asked, and he was a little sullen again, but Roy thought some of that was thinking too hard and some of that was maybe, just maybe, nerves. He looked just right for a summer evening; a breath of warm air, soft with crickets and the smell of grass, stirred his hair and blew in around him.

"Please," Roy said.

Ed paused in the entryway, as though he couldn't bring himself to go in any farther without unloading himself of whatever was so clearly weighting his mind. Roy paused, too, held his breath.

Ed drew a deep breath. "I. I. I've been thinking about what you. Said."

"Yes?"

Another flare, but it was more weary than angry. "Don't you 'yes' me like this is something that's got nothing to do with you. You keep doing that, you don't say anything and let me put everything on the line—"

"You're right. I'm sorry."

Ed looked completely startled to get an apology, and that was just possibly more than half of why Roy had done it in the first place. Then he blew out a breath that pushed his bangs back from his eyes and said, "Look, do you want me or not? Are you trying to fob me off gently or what?"

Even though it was a hot night, Ed was wearing a jacket, and Roy realized suddenly that it was because of the automail. He was hiding the automail. His hands itched to pull it off him, see his arms, one steel and the other flesh and strongly muscled. He wrenched his mind back to the conversation "I'm trying to figure out what _you_ want. Besides the entirety of all knowledge in the universe, as noble a goal as that is."

It had been an attempt at humor, but for some reason it failed. Ed's expression darkened, and he said, "All the knowledge in the universe isn't as great as you might think."

What?

"Come on," Ed continued, bright and angry and direct, looking Roy straight in the eye, "answer the question. Do you want me? Or not? You've been running hot and cold all week—maybe longer, I dunno, I wasn't looking for it then—and I want you to just explain it to me."

A long silence, stretching like drawn wire, and Roy let it stretch partly out of the dim curiosity how long it could go before Edward broke it and partly because he was frankly frightened: frightened to tell the truth, frightened to lie, frightened to say nothing. But Edward didn't break the silence, looked at him with hard insightful bright eyes until finally he was the one to crack. It was like staring into the sun, he thought without any humor.

"Yes. Yes, Edward, Ed, it has not . . . escaped my notice that you have been growing into—have grown into—a very attractive and very _compelling_ young man, and it has also not escaped my notice that you are no longer underage and also no longer my subordinate, but still, given our past relationship, it would not have been appropriate for me to push. But it had occurred to me, even before you began thinking about . . . the array. God help me."

Edward was silent for a long time, clearly thinking—the rapid spinning of his brain, like arrays blossoming behind his eyes. Very quietly, he asked, "So why did you say no?"

"Because the first time you have sex shouldn't be . . . utilitarian. And the first time you have sex with me—if, if, _if_ you ever do—will not be utilitarian, because I do not conduct my affairs that way. I won't sleep with you because you want something else and see it as a necessary evil in attaining your goal. I will not."

Edward's throat worked for a long time,and then he rasped, "You idiot. You are an idiot. Do you think I offered because—do you think—damn it, you're so _stupid_—"

And suddenly he was being kissed, somehow, Ed halfway to climbing him to make it work. Being kissed badly, all teeth and unsurety—more attacked than kissed.

He could fix that. And did. And Ed had no idea how to kiss, but he tasted—he tasted like _Ed_, and he was hot and aggressive and eager and that made up quite a lot for lack of technique. Roy found himself leading without thinking, coaxing less teeth and more tongue, until they had to stop because there wasn't enough air in their lungs.

"I want, I want," Ed said against his mouth, "_damn_ it, I don't know how to—I mean, I've, you, you _bastard_, I'm not going to beg —"

"You could have said something," Roy said. "I had no idea."

"Well, now you do," Ed snarled, and kissed him again, and again Roy had to back off to keep from having his lip bitten off, but that was quite all right. Was perfect.

* * *

It was too soon, of his own accord he would not have tried to bed Ed that first night, but Ed had his own ideas, and—well, it wasn't entirely Roy's decision, was it? It was something for him to figure out with Ed, and if Ed wanted, who was he to deny? (Selfish, selfish: he didn't want to deny, had already imagined Ed naked enough times that he was impatient himself, and how many men who'd gone from pushing thirty to dragging it would really push aside an extremely attractive nineteen-year-old who wanted in their bed . . . ?)

He was pinned against the doorway to his own room by Ed, grinding and desperate and clearly unsure what to do and clearly also unwilling to let go. "Slow down," he said, "slow down."

"Don't you dare try to put me off."

"I'm not, I think I'd be afraid to try."

"Good." Another kiss, another, god, more. And he'd been right, Ed was gold, the sun, the principle of light: bright and brilliant and reckless and unconstrained. But this wasn't about alchemy, except inasmuch as everything in Ed's life was about alchemy, and this wasn't about summoning energy, wasn't about doing a Great Working—this was just about what Ed wanted. What they wanted.

Apparently what Ed wanted was to climb him like a tree—a unique solution to the height difficulty—and suck his face off.

They made it into the bedroom, stumbling. Ed dropped his jacket, finally, and then hesitated, his fingers on the hem of his shirt and looking at Roy.

"Oh please," Roy said, "please do."

Ed stripped the shirt off cleanly, one motion that made the muscles ripple from his stomach up through his chest and his arm, shook his head to free his braid and looked up at Roy, devastating and a little hesitant, golden skin and hair and eyes, hardly human at all. "You look absolutely beautiful, do you know," Roy said.

Ed looked irritated and pleased and he said, "Take your shirt off, too, I'm not going to be the only one naked here."

"Oh no, you're not," Roy breathed. "Why don't you come help me."

Ed smiled, then, a hesitant curve of his lips and then the familiar pointy fox-grin, and it would have been easier on Roy's shirt if he'd taken it off himself but he hardly minded. No, he didn't mind at all . . . . Warm breath, warm skin, he kissed Ed's shoulder and throat as Ed struggled with his buttons and cursed and then gave a startled moan when Roy ran his tongue along the tendon that ran between his collarbone and his ear.

They stripped the rest of the way, together, and Ed was shy—of course he was shy, he'd hardly even thought of doing this before, had clearly not kissed much before if at all, and that was almost endearing. Roy loosed his hair to watch it spill over his shoulders, one flesh one steel, one gold one silver, he could be a Sacred Union all by himself, and then Ed wobbled and flushed and muttered, "The bed, I can't stand up much longer."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Bastard." But he didn't seem too upset—eager, yes, tugging with hands that weren't soft, just as his body wasn't soft, hard muscle where it wasn't harder steel. On the bed, kissing again, and Ed was nothing if not a quick study and knew a little better now how to use his tongue and how not to use his teeth. Roy got a hand into his hair, slid another down his bare back, feeling the slight inequity in the muscles of his shoulders, one bearing the heavier burden of metal, feeling the line of his spine, the arch as he shivered and tried to press both closer and away at the same time, traced lightly over his ass and made him _jerk_, stunned and wordless.

"We don't have to—" he began, because he had to, and also because just this, just bare skin and touching, was more than he had really allowed himself to hope for. If this was all it was to be tonight, that would be more than enough.

"Don't be stupid," Ed said. "I want."

It was a sentence to itself, _I want, I want, I want_, and it beat in Roy's blood and brain and breath as he kissed Ed and touched him, and tried not to startle himself when Ed started, tentatively, to touch him back. Hands on his biceps, his chest, flesh thumb rubbing over his nipple and earning a startled moan, automail fingers spread wide over his belly. Then suddenly Ed was staring into his face, with the hard intent look he usually reserved for books, and said, "You get to see the automail. I want to see your face without the eyepatch."

Roy swallowed. "It's a considerably less pretty sight than the automail," he said. "I'd rather . . . not now. Later?"

Ed frowned, but said, "All right," and then kissed him again, and that made up for the moment of awkwardness.

Hands on skin, and god, god, Ed had gorgeous skin, even with the scars like spiderwebbing—smooth except where it wasn't, warm as sunlight, and he pulled Ed against him—their cocks touched and Ed went suddenly rigid on a gasped moan, and Roy kneaded his back and then his ass and breathed his hair. It smelled like the summer night, crickets and warm green.

He did tense when Ed's flesh hand slid down to wrap around his erection, tensed and moaned and then kissed Ed hard, tongue and just the edges of teeth and lips and sweat. Ed broke away and gave him another piercing look and then said, "I—I do know about the mechanics of this, and I think you should, I don't know enough to—"

God, he was—god, fuck, gorgeous and strange and not quite human—"If it's what you want. Yes. Anything you want."

But he was also still Ed, and he bristled a little at that and said, "It's not that I want you to sweep me off my feet, fucker, it's just that I don't know how—"

Rubbing his back, kneading his thighs as he explored, tentatively, Roy's cock and balls and oh god, don't _stop_. He managed, through a choked breath, "If you're afraid it makes you more . . . feminine, Edward, that's not —"

"Look, I'm not afraid of being a woman, okay? Most of the best people in my life have been women, 'cept Al. And Hughes. And Winry's dad. And—"

_And maybe you_, Roy heard, unspoken but loud. Ed's eyes narrowed.

"I just don't want you to think I'm going to roll at your feet after this."

"I think I'd be quite disappointed," Roy said, "if you did."

He was glad he still kept lube in the bedside table, was glad that Ed responded so _well_ to fingers moving inside him—head thrown back, expression intent and breath hoarse and hitching, looking so good that a little part of Roy wanted to just wrap his other hand around Ed's cock and make him come like that and just watch. But Ed was saying, "Come on, come on, I'm ready."

"I'm afraid you're hardly an expert on the subject."

"It's my fucking body, I should know if —oh god." Roy pulled his fingers out and slicked himself, because really, he only had so much control too.

And—

Heat and rhythm, flex, motion; Ed beneath him, hair splayed out, beneath him but not _passive_ in any sense of the word—writhing and fucking him back, moving and cursing and moaning, warm, god, _Ed_, inhumanly beautiful, luminous in the light of the bedside lamp, burning gold, eyes moving behind his eyelids and then opening wide, gold almost swallowed by black pupils, right before he _came_ —

Roy lost control a little, at the end, watching Ed's face through his orgasm and after. His heart hammered his ribs and took flight, and afterward he sank against Ed, boneless and satisfied.

* * *

"I still want to try the array," Ed said, his hands on Roy's back, stroking over sweaty skin and counting vertebrae.

"I know." Roy kissed his collarbone.

Ed's look turned sly, as much as it could when he mostly looked sleepy and satiated. "But I, uh, I think we should practice more. It would be stupid to mess it up because I'm not very . . . uh, experienced. Skilled."

Roy chuckled. "I have no complaints whatsoever about your skills, but I also have no complaints about practicing."

Ed's fingers sketched arrays on his skin, played with the hair at the back of his neck. ". . . so you want, I mean, it's okay with you if this is—if it's not just the one—if this is a, a thing?"

That took a moment to untangle. "You have such a nuanced vocabulary when it comes to the components of an array, and such a lack of nuance when it comes to things involving real people."

"Shut up, jackass, don't make fun of me." But without heat, slitted golden eyes and sweaty hair . . . .

"I'm not. Much. When have you had a chance to practice things involving people? But yes, to answer your question, it's more than all right with me if we make something real of this." Because he wouldn't have dreamed of starting something like this if they couldn't. Not with Ed. Too much history there, and too much hurt, and too much of him sacrificing himself. No. Something real and good, and it would be good for both of them.

"And—" Ed said.

"Yes. And we'll try the array. But later."

"Mmm."

"Later . . . "

A long drowsy silence, and he thought Ed had fallen asleep. But then he heard, "You get to be the moon. I'll be the sun."

Yes. Oh, yes, it wouldn't work any other way, and the thought of teaching Ed how to do _that_, well . . . "I wouldn't have it any other way."


End file.
